


If you love someone set them on fire

by RuArcher (Coriesocks)



Series: Star Wars fics [5]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Bickering, Established Relationship, Fluff, Kylux Positivity Week (Star Wars), M/M, No Plot/Plotless, Sickfic, Swearing, mention of sex acts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-08
Updated: 2021-03-08
Packaged: 2021-03-14 22:47:28
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,886
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29923983
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Coriesocks/pseuds/RuArcher
Summary: Hux is bad at being sick. Kylo hates it.
Relationships: Armitage Hux/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren
Series: Star Wars fics [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2079093
Comments: 10
Kudos: 41
Collections: Kylux Positivity Week the 3rd





	If you love someone set them on fire

**Author's Note:**

> For the Sick day prompt from day 6 of Kylux Positivity Week 2021
> 
> Title is pinched from a Dead Milkmen song.

Kylo stalks through the endless corridors of the Supremacy, his concern twisting further into irritation with each step. He shoulders through groups of slow-moving troopers and officers, kicks droids to the side when they linger too long in his presence. He should never have left this morning, he knows this now. Stupid, stupid. He should have stayed and made sure that Hux actually looked after himself for once because of course, that impossible man can’t be trusted to spend a single second looking after his own health. He should have just put him into a Force-induced sleep like he’d wanted to, fuck the consequences. He’d been so close, too—Hux had had his back to him, bent over his datapad, and he wouldn’t have noticed a thing—but the thought of dealing with Hux’s rage once he’d regained consciousness had been enough to halt Kylo’s fingers at the last second. He might have to do it now, though. Hux had proved time and time again that he has no regard for his own well-being, forgoing sleep more than is healthy, forgetting to eat, pumping his body full of caf and stims just to get through his shifts. Kylo had believed he’d trained the worst of those habits out of him, but that’s clearly not so since Hux’s quarters had been completely devoid of anything Hux-shaped when Kylo had gone to check on him earlier.

When he reaches the bridge, Kylo’s eyes instantly lock onto Hux, standing by Thanisson’s station, nodding along as the baby-faced officer speaks about something displayed on the console between them. It’s immediately obvious, to Kylo at least, that Hux shouldn’t even be upright, let alone commanding a star destroyer. He’s listing slightly to one side, he’s blinking too much, and his hands are clenching and unclenching behind his back as if he’s forcing himself to stay alert. He looks like he’s having to actively concentrate on what Thanisson is saying. It takes only a moment longer for Kylo to read the mood of the bridge, to feel the wariness and concern bleeding out of the officers as they try to ignore Hux’s obvious discomfort and get on with their work. The crew flinches as one as Hux sneezes and Thanisson takes a careful half-step back. It’ll only be a matter of days before they have a ship-wide epidemic if Hux continues to scatter his germs around the place.

Kylo sighs, his irritation already starting to ebb a little. He’s torn. On the one hand, he’s struck with an intense desire to check Hux is okay, to lavish care on him and use all the power at his disposal to make him feel better. But on the other hand, he wants to grab him by the shoulders, shake some sense into him, and demand to know why he cares so little about himself. gather Hux up in his arms; checking he’s okay; carrying him back to his quarters. He does neither, though. He just stares. Silently fumes. Wonders whether he wants Hux to survive this encounter or not.

Hux turns, no doubt alerted to Kylo’s presence by the quiet that slowly seeps through the bridge as people notice him lurking. He straightens under Kylo’s scrutinising glare. Stares defiantly back, meeting Kylo’s eyes as accurately as if the mask weren’t in place. Kylo reaches out with the Force and finds Hux’s mental shields shaky but there, prickling around him and blocking Kylo from reaching into his mind. 

“General. A word?” Kylo growls, striding over to Hux’s side.

“I’m a little busy. Can’t it wait?” His sharp words are at odds with the weirdly hazy look in his eyes, like he can’t quite focus. It sends a spike of concern through Kylo, but then Hux blinks and he looks a little more himself.

“We can discuss it here if that’s what you want?” Kylo’s more than willing to oblige if Hux wants to have this out on the bridge; he’s not the one who’s always adamant they keep their… entanglement out of public knowledge. Kylo couldn’t care less if the crew know how thirsty Hux is for his cock. “How when you woke up in my—”

“Alright! Enough,” Hux hisses, his cheeks flushing darkly. Kylo thinks for a minute that Hux is going to try and dismiss him again, but after only a brief standoff, he manoeuvres them to a quiet-ish corner muttering something under his breath that Kylo doesn’t quite catch. 

“So, what’s going on? Why are you working?” Kylo asks when it becomes clear that Hux has no intention of apologising or doing anything but scowl at him. The effect of his glare is lessened substantially by the redness rimming his eyes and the sickly tinge to his skin, though. Worry worms its way down Kylo’s spine, diffusing some of his irritation. “You’re supposed to be resting,” he adds, his voice softer. “You promised you’d take it easy.”

“I’m fine,” he snaps, and then turns to smother a cough in his sleeve. “I don’t need to take it easy.” 

“Yeah? You don’t look fine. You look half-dead. Come on, let me take you back to bed before you collapse.” He puts a hand on Hux’s shoulder and Hux jumps back as if electrocuted, his face furious.

“Just because I allow you into my bed on occasion, it does not give you the right to mother hen me,” he snaps. “Especially while I’m working.”

Kylo feels the beginnings of a headache pulsing behind his eyes. He sighs, the sound flat and harsh through the vocoder. He’d better not be getting sick too. “I’m not mother-henning you. It’s called concern. I’m allowed to be concerned when my best general, my—” he drops his voice and leans in, “—partner-in-fucking, looks like he’s about to drop dead.” Hux curls his pale lips into a sneer, but it’s half-hearted at best. He’s starting to look a bit green now, and sweat is beading on his forehead. “Look, Hux, just tell me what the medic said and then I’ll leave.” 

“She said I was fine, obviously.” Hux turns, eyes tracking a pair of TIE fighters that buzz past the viewport. “It’s just a common cold. Nothing to do about it, so sod off and let me do my job.”

“You still should have taken a sick day. You couldn’t even open your eyes this morning, they were so gummed up with that gross eye gunk stuff. And look at you! You look like total bantha shit. Don’t you even—” Kylo pauses mid-rant; narrows his eyes. The fact that Hux has let him continue for so long without rebuke is indication enough that he’s sick, but there’s something else too… Something about the way the Force moves around him; darker, murkier than usual. Guilt. He’s feeling guilty. Since when did Hux feel guilt? “You didn’t go to the medbay, did you?”

“What makes you say— Oh, for fuck’s sake. Get out of my kriffing head, Ren.”

“Then don’t lie to me about going to medbay!” He winces at the sound of his raised voice. It’s not escaped his notice that every person around them is straining to listen to their conversation despite trying to pretend otherwise. Hux is clearly aware of this unsubtle scrutiny too, judging by the suspicious look he sends over his shoulder. There’s a brief flurry of activity as everyone returns to work. 

“You wouldn’t have known I was lying unless you were poking about in my mind like the boundary-less Jawa that you are.” Hux hisses. He coughs into his handkerchief and his face reddens as he tries, unsuccessfully, to stifle it and triggers more coughing. The coughs deepen; hacking, wet, barking sounds that have Kylo’s hands wavering uselessly midway between them. He suspects Hux would slit his throat open if he made any move to comfort him right now, but fuck, it’s hard doing nothing. Hux supports himself with one hand on the bulkhead as he rides out the coughing fit, eyes watering, chest heaving. The crew shoot Hux concerned looks, but their lack of surprise makes it clear that this isn’t the first time Hux has almost hacked up a lung onto the bridge floor. 

Once the coughing has subsided and Kylo is slightly less worried about Hux’s imminent death, he lets out a frustrated growl. “Go to your quarters and get some rest. That’s an order.” 

“You’re ordering me? Oh Ren, I didn’t think you cared,” Hux sneers. His breaths wheeze in his throat, but it doesn’t stop him spitting the words out.

Kylo rolls his eyes. “I _don’t_ care. I just don’t want you infecting the rest of the crew with whatever whore plague you picked up from that pleasure planet last shore leave.”

“Whore plague? What are you, five? Grow up. And get off my bridge.” He has another coughing fit, less severe this time. At Kylo’s pointed glare, though, he makes a surprising concession. “I’ll request a medical droid sent to my quarters once I get off shift, if it’ll shut you up.”

“Fine. But I’ll know if you’re lying.”

“I—” Hux’s eyes go a little unfocused for the briefest of seconds, and Kylo starts forward to… to do something, he’s not sure what, but then Hux blinks, shakes his head, and his usual glare slips back into place.

Kylo exhales loudly. Holds his hands at the small of his back to prevent himself from either smashing a fist into Hux’s snotty face, or throwing Hux over his shoulder and manhandling him off the bridge. “Comm me the second you’re done with medical,” he growls, before spinning on his heel and marching off the bridge.

He doesn’t manage to get far. As the door to the turbo lift hisses open, he hears a noise like a sack of jogan fruit hitting the floor, followed by gasps and shouts of alarm. But most worrying of all was the sudden numb blankness in the Force where usually he felt Hux burning brightly.

“Hux?” The name is dragged from his throat even as he turns. When he lays eyes on Hux’s lifeless form, nothing more than a lump of rumpled black fabric on the polished black floor between the two crew pits, his blood runs cold. “Hux!”

Kylo has never moved so fast. He sprints the short distance, skidding to a halt beside Hux’s body, falling to his knees and gathering Hux into his arms. He’s dimly aware of chaos around him but his eyes don’t leave Hux’s pale face. He tears off a glove with his teeth, brushes the hair from Hux’s forehead, dread choking him at the feel of Hux’s clammy skin beneath his fingers. Hux’s name spills from his lips over and over, begging him to open his eyes. He wraps him in the Force, clinging onto the faint pulse he can feel, the flicker of life that shows Hux is still there.

And then there are tentative hands on his shoulders, guiding him to his feet. A flash of chrome. The beep of a droid from somewhere nearby. He doesn’t let go. Not even when he can tell they want him to. Hux is too frail, too weak. He needs Kylo and so Kylo is never letting him go.

*

“Where in the kriffing sith hells am I?” 

Kylo snorts awake, rubbing the crick from his neck. It takes a second to work out where he is, why he’d been asleep half on the floor, half on his bed, and why Hux is talking to him. But then he remembers. And in the next instant realises what he just heard. Hux.

“Ren! What the fuck are you doing? Why are you drooling on my sheets?”

He sounds annoyed. It’s wonderful. Despite its rough, sleep-worn edge, Hux’s voice is like the sweetest song to Kylo’s ears after two nights of anxiously waiting for him to regain consciousness. He scrambles closer and grabs one of Hux’s hands in both of his. “Hux! You’re awake!”

“Ten points for stating the bleeding obvious,” Hux says, but he doesn’t shake off Kylo’s grip. 

Kylo can’t help the grin that spreads across his face. “I thought I’d lost you. You fucking asshole.”

“Why? What happened?” Hux frowns. He sounds quieter now, less self-assured. Kylo wants to kiss the little divot between his brows. He wants to kiss him everywhere.

“You collapsed, that’s what.” Kylo squeezes his hand. He’s both furious and yet giddy with relief at seeing Hux’s eyes open, hearing his voice, seeing his nose scrunch. “You almost died because you’re too much of a fucking idiot to see a kriffing doctor. That virus you picked up—turned out a little more serious than a kriffing cold.”

“I collapsed?” He looks at where their hands are joined; still makes no move to detach himself. His fingers twitch and Kylo can practically see his mind whirring behind his eyes.

“Yeah. Out cold on the bridge. We’ve had to quarantine everyone you came into contact with. Everyone who was on shift with you on the bridge, the engineering department, half the fucking stormtroopers. Phasma.”

“Oh.” His frown deepens. “How many of the crew were… incapacitated?”

“About a third, all in. You were a busy little womp rat. Maybe next time you’ll listen to me when I tell you to take a sick day.” He quirks an eyebrow.

Hux snorts faintly and the corners of his lips twitch. “Unlikely.”

“Yeah, I thought as much.”

Hux falls silent, his gaze distant. He absently scratches his chest with his free hand. Kylo thought he’d be sick of silence by now, but this is good. Comfortable. Hux’s presence in his head, their connection, hums contentedly, warm and reassuring.

“So, how come you’re not sick?” Hux asks eventually.

“Superior genetics, obviously.” Kylo smirks.

“Fuck you.”

“Absolutely. You want a taste _now_?”

“I don’t know if you’re suggesting I suck you off, eat you out, or just chew on your arm, but the answer is no. To everything. I’m poorly, in case you’ve forgotten.” He tugs the blanket up to his chin and pouts, causing Kylo’s stomach to do a weird little flip. When had Hux become so much more than just a convenient cock to sit on and how hadn’t he noticed? It’s so obvious now. 

“At least you’re finally admitting it.” 

“Yes, well, I suppose there’s a chance I misjudged things. In hindsight.” He purses his lips and something akin to guilt rolls off him. Kylo waits patiently for him to say whatever it is that’s troubling him. “So, uh. Did we lose many? If we need to start a new recruitment drive, I’ll have to meet with accounting to adjust the budget and—”

Kylo cuts him off with a barked laugh. He’d been expecting an apology or an admission of some kind. Trust Hux to care more about the state of the First Order. 

“What? Why are you laughing at me?” 

“Sorry, sorry. I guess it’s not funny but… well, it is a bit. Turns out, most people don’t get worse than a bit of a cough, a slight fever. There’s just something about your Arkanisian genes that really pisses off this particular virus.”

Hux’s mouth drops open. “Bloody typical,” he spits. 

“Yeah, typical.” Kylo laughs again, relief and happiness bubbling inside him. He feels like he’s drunk. “Poor Hux and his delicate constitution.”

“Oh, fuck off.” Hux folds his arms across his chest. “Go fetch me a tea. And my datapad. And… and can you get my dressing gown from the wardrobe—the dark green one with the silver monogram on the pocket?”

Kylo sighs and gets up, heading to the door. He’s starting to miss the quiet already. Hux was so much more pleasant to be around when he was in a coma.

“Wait, Ren.” Kylo pauses, he steps back, hope blossoming in his chest: This is going to be the moment Hux thanks him for saving his life, maybe declares his undying love, asks Kylo to move permanently into his quarters… “What if someone sees you leave? They’re going to talk. How… how long have you even been in here? If there’s already gossip doing the rounds we’ll have to head it off before it gains too much ground.”

Kylo shakes his head, suppressing a rueful smile. “Yeah… about that. That shuttle has already left the hangar, jumped to hyperspace, and reached the other side of the galaxy. The loth-cat is well and truly out of the bag, running freely around the star destroyer.”

“…what the fuck are you on, Ren? Talk sense.”

“I was really worried when you collapsed and _nearly died,_ okay? So I may have said a few things… broken a few consoles… choked a few crew members… And there’s uh, one wing of the main medbay that will need completely refitting, so… you know…” 

“It’s hardly news to me that you have the temper of a spoilt toddler. What are you trying to say?” 

“People know, Hux. About us.”

“Oh, for fuck’s sake. Ren!”

Kylo shrugs. “Should have listened to me.”

“Never. Now, piss off. And don’t forget my tea.”

Kylo actually does leave this time, but not before he catches sight of Hux’s smile. He realises then that perhaps he’s not as alone in this confusing mess of feelings as he’d thought.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! Come find me on [Tumblr](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/coriesocks) and [Twitter](https://twitter.com/coriesocks) @coriesocks <3


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